PROFESSIONAL men’s doubles pair, Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani missed out on a chance to become the first Malaysians to capture the World Tour Finals (WTF) title.
This came after Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin, fell short, losing 17-21, 21-17, 11-21 in the final match held in Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Gymnasium that lasted 65 minutes.
Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin’s final match started on the wrong foot as they crumbled under the pressure from the Danes, trailing 1-4 in the earlier stage of the game before losing 17-21.
Despite leading comfortably 4-0 in the second game, the world number seven duo had a nervous moment when a series of unforced errors allowed the opponent, ranked third in the world, to tie the score at 11-11.
However, the momentum quickly shifted in favour of Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin, who displayed strong attacking play to have a comfortable 17-12 lead and closed it out with with a 21-17 win to force the match into the decider.
It was a neck and neck battle in the third game as both pairs tied at 3-3 but things did not go the Malaysians way as they lost focus and the Danes slowly widened the gap at 11-7, stayed calm to dominate the rest of the game and walked out as the champions with 21-11.
Today’s result meant Astrup-Rasmussen managed to extend their record to eight wins out of 10 matches against Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin.
Astrup-Rasmussen pocketed US$210,000 (about RM934,000) while Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin took home USD100,000 (about RM445,000) as runners-up.
Despite the defeat, Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin, who made their WTF debut, still had a stellar season, in bagging three World Tour titles namely Japan Open (Super 750), China Open (Super 1000) and Arctic Open (Super 500).
